Sad Little Smiles
by 100paperfans
Summary: Time numbs us to the marrow and we are too blind to see it. Hints of Giotto/Tsuna.


**Title: **Sad Little Smiles  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I do not own these characters.  
><strong>CharactersPairings:** Giotto, Tsuna  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> (+/-) 1750  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Hints of Giotto/Tsuna if you squint.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Time numbs us to the marrow and we are too blind to see it.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I kind of left this open to a massive amount of interpretation. Has Tsuna gone crazy? Is he seeing things? Is it all a figment of his imagination? You be the judge~ And, well, this turned out a lot more tame the second time around, but finally finished it thanks to write or die.

0-0-0

"Stop," Tsuna says pleadingly. There are tears in his eyes, but they aren't from any sort of physical pain. It's hard to feel anything in a dark world that bends light to its will and creates a place that shouldn't exist. He has been here only once before, for the Vongola Trial, and it is nothing like that time. There's a beautiful blue sky high above, there's grass beneath his feet that is probably soft to the touch, and a light wind plays at his hair, whispering of the places it's been.

It could have been real, all of it, if Tsuna believed for a second that the man smiling – resigned and sad - beside him was alive. Tsuna isn't deluded enough to be believe in something like this and he wants it to end. He doesn't want to see any more of his predecessor's memories, because as much as this could be real, all of it, it isn't and he doesn't want to see Giotto pretending to live when there will never be chance for it again.

It's like looking into a mirror. He can't stand it. Slow, silent tears fall from his eyes, contrasting with the beautiful scene around him. Giotto reaches out and tips his chin upwards, still smiling that smile that twists at Tsuna's emotions like nothing else in this fake world. A thumb caresses his cheek, wiping away the tears. "Don't cry," his ancestor insists on a whisper no louder than the wind, "I didn't bring you here to make you cry."

Tsuna lets out a hollow laugh and pushes the hand away. "Then leave my dreams alone, I can't stay here."

"Who says you're dreaming?" proposes the man in return, eyes looking back up to the sky. "It's not really a dream, Tsuna. And I … was alone. I don't like being alone."

"Don't … Don't you have the rest of Vongola to keep you company?"

"Look around," Giotto replies mirthlessly, sweeping his arm across the scenery. It disperses in a shower of colored rain and they are left in an empty gray world that has Tsuna longing for the vibrancy of before. "There is no one. The Ring does not play by human laws, far from it. We are only allowed to conjoin for the Trial and that is all. We are alone, every single one of us."

"I don't understand how I got here if I'm not dreaming," Tsuna says quietly. Then after a moment's hesitation, he asks, "I-I'm not dead, am I?"

Giotto doesn't answer right away. An unreadable look shutters off his emotions and makes it nearly impossible for Tsuna to tell what lay behind those amber eyes - the same eyes he inherits from this man. _No,_ denies in the sanctity of his own mind, _I couldn't have died._There is a nagging doubt, though. He has forgotten something important and that something has to explain why he is here.

"It is not impossible," Giotto begins with a calm his descendant can't imitate, too busy panicking. "You could have passed on, but," and Tsuna holds his breath, hoping, praying, "that isn't the case here. To be honest, I don't understand why you're here either."

And while Tsuna finds it encouraging he isn't dead, that still leaves the matter of why he's paying a visit to a dead man if he isn't dead. He likes Giotto, his ancestor is a nice, genuinely likable person, but he does not remember making a schedule and putting on it _visit dead relatives today_.

Nervously, he seeks out an escape in the gray world that surrounds him, but there is no door. There is simply nothing, and Tsuna wonders if this is what it's like to truly be dead, with no sign of life for miles. _How long,_ he speculates in his thoughts, _has Giotto surrounded himself with these fantasies of life? Memories brought into being so he doesn't have to deal with this bleak world?_

It's enough to drive any man insane. Tsuna knows he wouldn't be able to do it. He trembles even now imagining it. Is this what awaits him? One day, long after the name of Decimo is nothing but a legend, will it be him standing there with that sad smile that has given up on everything?

"Tsuna," Giotto calls, voice soft and low as he places a hand on shaking shoulders, "you don't have to worry. We will find a way for you to return."

"I …" Tsuna bites down the insecurities that threaten to burst out and hangs his head, letting his bangs hide his eyes. "Yeah." A small part of him holds hope, but the larger, more sensible part of his mind is telling him there is no escape once caught in this world's hold, a place the living dare not tread.

"It will be okay, you'll see," Giotto comforts, lifting his hand off of slim shoulders and entangling it in the messy brown hair mere inches away. "Until then, we can be together," and if Tsuna notices the quiet desperation his ancestor speaks with, he does not comment on it. The young man looks up, tries for a smile and somehow succeeds, and then places his own hand over Giotto's, beginning to remove it from his hair.

"Thank you," comments Tsuna lightly once there's a bit distance between them, his intuition warning him that something isn't right, even if he wants to ignore it and trust blindly. "Let's find a way out of this place, for both of us."

Giotto appears not to hear him, gaze straying to the murky, fog-like expanse around them. "Is there a place you would like to be? We can start by searching through your memories."

Tsuna considers and settles on, "How about my last memory before I found myself here? I was at the Vongola residence in Italy."

"Paint the picture in your mind and then bring it to life," instructs Giotto gently, sidling up to Tsuna and placing both hands on his shoulders once more. He spins him around to face the endless gray and furthers his instructions with, "Image this world as a blank canvas, Tsuna, and you are its creator. Let me see what you see."

Tsuna closes his eyes and recalls what the room looked like, remembering the canopied bed and the bedside table that he had placed a book on before falling asleep. His dresser, his closet, the doors … he tries to place them all where they belong and then opens his eyes, expecting to see gray and prove he has failed – but that's not the case. The room is as vibrant as Giotto's Italian countryside from earlier and he stifles a gasp, amazed at the final product. The warm hues of red on the walls and the blue of the banister over his bed are welcome colors splashed over the once dreary world he had been trapped in. For a split second, he believes himself to back home, safe and sound, and then he turns and Giotto's strained smile is there to greet him.

The blonde has taken a seat at the desk where a lamp is on, but Tsuna remains standing, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as he ponders how this will help with anything. "Er, should I have picked somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else? Possibly. But it was your choice, Tsunayoshi. You picked this place for a reason. Is it the security?" Giotto wonders casually. "The feel of home that is lost in this place?" He smiles faintly and leans back in the chair, inviting Tsuna to explain himself if he wishes to do so. "Do not get me wrong. It's a lovely bedroom, but there are many more places in this mansion that you could have picked."

"I wanted to … I guess you could say start where I left off," Tsuna explains, haphazard in his words. "You said to pick anywhere. This is the last thing I remember."

"Mm, a bed can tell us many things." Giotto stretches languidly where he sits, smile turning a bit more wicked. "I remember days when I didn't sleep at all in that bed." Slowly, the blonde stands from his seat and walks closer to the four-poster, running a loving hand along the woodwork. "Nights I couldn't sleep at all. Nightmares, some of those nights. Company, the rest."

Tsuna turns red at the implications that last statement entails, but he doesn't back up despite Giotto's inclosing proximity to his body. There is something otherworldly about his ancestor that has him as fascinated as he is scared. It's not a big deal, perhaps he's only making it into one within his own mind. This might all be a dream, an elaborate one, but a dream just the same. What is there to tell him what is real and what is not, if not for his own perceptions? Confusion sets in and he parts his lips, about to say something, but not sure what. The only sound that leaves his lips is, "Giotto," and he isn't sure of why.

"Don't worry," that smile from before, filled with sadness, has returned and the one of mere seconds ago is gone, "I don't plan to be entertaining that kind of company any time soon. My days are over. Yours, Vongola Decimo, are only beginning."

0-0-0

The next day, Tsuna wakes up, but there is something off about everything. The sun seems brighter. The velvet comforter seems stranger to the touch. Even Gokudera's loud shout of "Tenth!" is magnified with an intensity that he can't begin to place. It's as if every sensation, every sense he has ever known, has woken up and given life to a whole new him. Later, he looks in the mirror and he witnesses, as terrified as he is to see it, the sad little smile Giotto showed seconds before he awoke. Only it's on his own face and there is no mistaking that it was his.

Perhaps he has more in common with Giotto than he ever believed. Or maybe Giotto has more in common with him. There is a connection between them, a strange one, foreign in its making. Till the day he would die, Tsuna decides he won't rest until he has figured out what that dream meant, even if it means sacrificing his own happiness.

Maybe that dream is something else entirely. Maybe, just maybe, Vongola Primo can still be saved.

If it isn't too late already.


End file.
